Clarence Taylor: Professor of
History at Baruch College and the Graduate Center,
CUNY. He is the author of Reds on the Blackboard: Communism, Academic Freedom,
Civil Rights and the New York City Teachers Union, a forthcoming
book on the TU.

The New York City Teachers Union
advocated what would later be labeled as social movement
unionism, making strong alliances with unions, black and
Latino parents, civil rights and civil organizations,
and political parties in order to gain greater resources
for the schools and the communities in which they
worked. In particular, the TU fought to end racial
discrimination, poverty and other barriers to success
for children. It worked to increase teachers’ salaries
and improve working conditions. However, it went beyond
professional unionism and advocated a unionism that
would help transform the larger society.

The TU’s history is in large part a story of the American
left. It was deeply involved in some of the most
tumultuous battles of the left, including the fight
between the Communist Party and Jay Lovestone’s Communist
Party Opposition, the Communists’ struggle against
anti-Communist forces from the 1930s to the McCarthy
period of the 1950s, and the battle for civil rights. And,
ultimately, its uncritical support for the Soviet Union
and the American Communist Party was a detriment to its
objectives.

The TU’s history is in large part a story of the American
left. It was deeply involved in some of the most
tumultuous battles of the left, including the fight
between the Communist Party and Jay Lovestone’s Communist
Party Opposition, the Communists’ struggle against
anti-Communist forces from the 1930s to the McCarthy
period of the 1950s, and the battle for civil rights. And,
ultimately, its uncritical support for the Soviet Union
and the American Communist Party was a detriment to its
objectives.

Arthur Miller addresses the Teachers Union Dec. 18, 1948.

Nevertheless, the Party’s analysis of
racism, class exploitation, and its professed
objectives of working to build a society where these
social impediments no longer
existed, attracted these teachers and explains why
they saw the Communist Party as an important tool in
building a just society. Leaders of the Teachers Union
contended that higher wages and better working
conditions did not take priority over social justice.
Building strong ties with parents to improve schools
and communities, they maintained, benefitted teachers
as well as it did children.

The TU’s brand of unionism failed. By the late 1940s, it
faced a well-organized campaign to destroy it, one that
traced to its expulsion from the from the American
Federation of Teachers and the 1940-1942 Rapp-Coudert
hearings in the New York State Senate. Some 50 or 60
college professors and public school teachers lost their
jobs through the 1940s as a result of Rapp-Coudert. As the
Cold War tightened its grip, the drive against the union
became broader, involving national, state and local
governmental agencies, and labor, fraternal, civil rights
and religious organizations.

The New York Board of Education’s
investigations that are the focus of Dreamers and
Fighters
helped make the city a major battleground as post-war
fears of Communism took hold in the U.S. Over 1,100
teachers and other school employees were called in for
questioning, and ultimately over 400 resigned, retired,
or were fired outright as the Board sought to rout
Communists and other left-leaning teachers out of its
classrooms.

Teachers protesting Board of Education member George Timone in April 1950.

In 1950, Board of Education member George Timone succeeded
in having the Board adopt what came to be known as the
Timone Resolution, which banned the TU from operating in
the schools.

The battle over the resolution was far
more than a simple confrontation between the Board and
the TU. It demonstrated the division in the city created
by the Cold War.

Support for the resolution did not just
involve Board officials, but also included supporters at
the grassroots level such as Catholic Lay organizations
and other fraternal and civic groups. The resolution's
supporters argued that the TU was part of a world-wide
conspiracy.

The civic, religious, and labor organizations
and individuals opposing the Timone Resolution
contended that teachers had a right to select a
union of their choice. They argued that the
resolution was undemocratic and would take away
the union’s ability to operate as a
representative of teachers in grievances and
contract talks, and deny it the right to hold
meetings in the schools, thus ending its long
history as a legitimate trade union. The fight
over Timone became a major contest in the city
determining which type of teacher unionism would
be able to operate in the schools.

The TU lost its right to represent
teachers before the Board of Education with the Board’s
adoption of the Timone Resolution, and the Board’s
ongoing investigation led to the loss thousands of
members. Despite its situation, the Teachers Union did
not immediately disband. Instead, it launched campaigns
to eliminate racist and bigoted textbooks from
classrooms, hire more black teachers and promote black
history month. The TU remade itself into a leading voice
in the New York City civil rights movement by
challenging racially discriminatory polices of the Board
of Education.

The story of the New York City Teachers
Union is the story of how one union helped create a
unique type of unionism, one that placed it in the
forefront of the struggle for civil rights, academic
freedom, and attempts to organize teachers and black and
Latino communities to empower them to confront those in
authority. The TU created a model of parent and teacher
relations that has never been duplicated. It also
militantly fought to improve working conditions for
teachers at the same time it championed broader social
concerns.

TIMELINE:Click
here for a Timeline of
the political impact of the blacklist era on the Teachers
Union and New York's teachers